Terrorism in the world is on the rise. More and more, airplanes and places where innocent people congregate are becoming targets. Wars between nations will decrease while civil wars and strife will increase, along with incidents of “low-grade” violence (to use the academic term for terrorist operations). The growing tide of new terrorists raises many questions regarding the substance of educational curricula and television trends that are intended to counter this phenomenon. The questions are urgent, as the series of bombings that occurred last month in various locations, from Iraq to Yemen, Nigeria to Pakistan, and Turkey to Brussels, looks like the beginning of an upsurge in international terrorist violence, meaning that more and more ordinary people may face this hideous malignancy in the near future. On 27 March a suicide bomber attacked a public park in Lahore, Pakistan, killing 72 people, mostly women and children, and wounding around 350 others. According to news reports, the bomber approached a children's play area before detonating his explosive belt. Two days before this, a suicide bomber attacked a crowded park in the Iraqi city of Iskandariya, killing 41 and wounding 105. On 16 March, two female suicide bombers said to belong to Boko Haram blew themselves up in a mosque in Maiduguri, Nigeria, during prayers, killing 24 and wounding 23. Also that month, two suicide bombings in Turkey, one carried out by an offshoot of the PKK in Ankara and another by an operative linked to the Islamic State group, in Istanbul, claimed around 50 lives and wounded dozens more. A few days ago, three car bombs exploded simultaneously in three parts of Aden, Yemen, killing 26. The foregoing are only a few examples of the terrorist attacks that occurred in recent weeks. Suicide bombings have been occurring at the rate of about one per day in the world in recent months. Thousands of Muslims die from suicide attacks every year in Islamic countries. Some Western circles have coldheartedly chalked this down to a “natural dynamic” in the Middle East. The Paris attacks of 2015 awoke some quarters to the disgraceful nature of that categorisation. The more recent simultaneous attacks of 22 March in two parts of Brussels, the heart of the EU, triggered alarm throughout the Western world. Western society has come to the realisation that terrorism is not a phenomenon exclusive to the Middle East that Middle Eastern countries have to deal with. It is a global plague. In the 1980s, groups representing a broad spectrum of ideologies began to use suicide bombings as an instrument of terror. Among these were communist/Marxist terrorist organisations and extremist religious terrorist organisations. These terrorist organisations moulded their suicide bombers through a process of intensive indoctrination, followed by the necessary training and psychological preparation to carry out the planned operation. The communist/Marxist groups inculcated their operatives with the belief that the lives of ordinary people have no value and that through their heroic deeds they would be immortalised in history and the annals of the revolution. Extremist religious groups brainwash their suicide bombers into violating religious values by appropriating and distorting such notions as “jihad”, self-sacrifice for God and his Prophet, and the promise of paradise. In fact, there is nothing in the Qur'an or any other scripture that justifies such vile attacks. Indeed, according to the Qur'an, suicide attacks are sinful. They are forms of committing mass murder against innocent people, which is explicitly prohibited, as is suicide for that matter — a crime equivalent to murder. So the notion that God Almighty might approve and even reward such acts of barbarism, which indiscriminately claim the lives of infants, children, women, the elderly and other innocent people, can only be the working of an irrational, misguided mind that is ignorant of the Qur'an. Sadly, ignorant, uneducated people are particularly vulnerable to brainwashing and pseudo-religious ideological indoctrination by fanatic pundits with half-baked ideas, peddlers of religion who derive their power from extremist demagoguery. In some cases, the brainwashing and indoctrination succeeds in creating murderers and suicide bombers. Terrorist organisations often prey on the children of destitute families. They pose as charities offering free education and board in order to get a hold of the young raw material to mould into suicide bombers. Recent confirmation of this came from a 12-year-old child from Peshawar who had been recruited to carry out a suicide bombing but who turned himself in to the police in Afghanistan. Many innocent children are being brainwashed into thinking that their problems and those of their families will come to an end and that they themselves will go to heaven by carrying out a suicide bombing. The suicide bombers cultivated by communist/Marxist groups are also brainwashed with lies and delusions, albeit inspired by communist, anarchistic ideology. The point here is that it makes no sense to try to intimidate those misguided people who are ready to die for the sake of false ideologies and lies by threatening them with bombs, weapons or other instruments of death. The only result of this approach, so far, has been to increase the numbers of suicide bombers. Violence always breeds violence. According to information collected by various intelligence agencies, there are hundreds of potential suicide attackers in Europe and the US today. They are believed to have been trained by various sects or factions, organised into separate dormant cells and waiting for the signal to act. Most of them were born and raised in those Western countries; they attended decent schools and have no criminal record. As such, they are virtually unidentifiable. More and more, ignorant and gullible people are growing keen to experience the thrill, dangers and fear that occur every time a suicide attack happens. This is part of a vicious cycle that has to be stopped. What needs to be done is very clear. In schools, students need to be shown the ideological lies and fabrications that are at the root of those suicide attacks, regardless of which ideology is behind them. The process of exposing the fictions needs to be extended to conferences, academic forums, public exhibitions, and the agendas of leading politicians and opinion makers. In short, all political and intellectual leaders need to join the drive. The only solution is to explain the important truths, and to belie those fantastic ideologies with Quranic evidence and rational argument. In other words, what is required is an urgent and intensive mass campaign of education and awareness raising. In like manner, communist, anarchistic ideology can be brought to an end by exposing the fallacy of its materialist mentality. In general, if societies want to put an end to suicide bombings, they need to improve their systems of education and counter erroneous ideologies with correct ones. Certainly, this is better and more effective than laying the foundations for more violence and restricting civil liberties.
